Most people are familiar with the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which first appeared in a
novella by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886.

The novella and the many adaptations that followed present Jekyll as a civilized, relatively
moral man who experiments with allowing the unrepentantly dark side of his nature, “Mr. Hyde,”
loose on the world — with horrifying consequences for both the world and himself.

Daniel Levine’s intelligent and brutal first novel,
Hyde, puts a fresh spin on the well-worn material. It’s told from Hyde’s point of view,
looking back over the period of time described in the novella but with a new perspective.

Levine sticks remarkably close to the framework of the original, which is reprinted in this
volume, and adds subplots of his own that enhance the central relationship between Jekyll and
Hyde.

As in the original, these are two personalities residing in the same body. This Hyde, allowed to
surface by Jekyll, has been “hibernating” for 36 years.

“The years between thirteen and forty-nine were a black smear across the span of my memory,” he
says. “I had left Jekyll a hollow-eyed, skinny, cropped-headed boy and returned to find a giant
blond god.”

As Hyde ranges through London, visiting prostitutes and attacking those he perceives as enemies,
he, at times, finds himself blanking out for periods and assailed by memories he doesn’t recognize
during others.

Remarkably, Levine refrains from making
Hyde a parody. Its hero is a tragic figure — but so is its Jekyll. When the two make
different sense of their lives and their world, both offer believable perspectives on the events
they witness and take part in.

Levine makes explicit what was implicit in the original. The novel isn’t for the squeamish:
Violence and degradation abound. Hyde makes his way through the seedy side of Victorian London,
with all its unsavory smells and hidden secrets. The novel imagines a convincing back story and
raises questions that resonate with those of the original.

It goes beyond a companion piece to an independent novel worth reading in its own right.